Warlords IV: Heroes of Erethria

How can a sequel lose features?

Warlords has been a turn-based, combat-oriented strategy series since 1990. I received the first one as part of a review package of SSG games around that time; most of the others accompanying it were either complex arcade titles, or war-based strategic combat. What set that original Warlords apart from its companions was the addition of attractive fantasy trappings. There were plenty of turn-based, combat-oriented strategy games for the PC before Warlords, and some were even fantasy-themed; but none of them quite caught that atmosphere. It was, of course, only skin deep; once you looked beneath the surface, Warlords still showed its board strategic warfare board game ancestry in its unit values, combat mode, stacks, and hexes. But it was a very pleasantly applied skin, and drew enough attention from reviewers and players for everybody to note the exceptionally strong AI. While other SSG titles didn't make much of a dent in the United States, the Australian developers easily established a strategic beachhead with Warlords. They built upon this, and were eventually able to infiltrate our American defenses with its successors, Warlords II and Warlords III: Darklords Rising.

Warlords IV is the fourth in this series. It's also the first developed after SSG split down the middle, with the fantasy-oriented products going to Melbourne-based Infinite Interactive. It might almost be called Warlords Back-to-the-Basics; not because it's a return to the original title I reviewed, but because of the elimination of a few major improvements found in Warlords II and III. Let's begin with these, since Warlords veterans might be more surprised by what's been left out of the game, rather than what's been added to the mix.

For starters, quests have greatly been simplified. Heroes no longer cast spells, though a new unit we'll discuss later can. The entire diplomacy element of the randomized, user-generated games has been removed from Warlords IV, meaning that you're automatically at war with all other players in singleplayer or multiplayer mode. You can no longer select the level of AI for each computer-driven opponent; and the AI will no longer resign, even when literally backed up against a mountain wall. None of this necessarily makes for a bad game, but it does reduce the number of gameplay elements that contribute to Warlords' configurable and strategic options; and from where I'm sitting, that's not a good thing.

Consider: deciding in Warlords III among a quest giver's three levels of challenges and rewards added an interesting sidelight to the game. Choosing the AI level of each enemy meant that you could control the game's flow, creating, for instance, scenarios where many weak opponents clustered in the field between you and another mighty opponent. Diplomacy meant that you could form temporary alliances with different AI players, which often produced interesting strategic complications in earlier product versions. (If you found it too annoying, you could always turn it off before starting a game.) All of these are gone. The only one that's been replaced in any way, the new, simplified quest system, simply chains four quests together before you get the ultimate prize. It's linear and repetitive, lacking the player involvement in decision-making that was so effective in Warlords III.

So why not ignore the latest release, go to bed, and set the alarm for a year or more hence when Warlords V will undoubtedly appear? Because the other side of the ledger, the one with the new or improved features, balances matters out and advances the cause for Warlords IV.

First, there's the ability to select the order in which your troops go to battle. The human player selects first, after which the AI get to choose. The unit that survives that initial traumatic encounter faces the next enemy, and the next after that, until all the troops on one side or the other have been killed. This procedure is a lot more engaging than the traditional setup of previous Warlords titles, in which the weakest units on both sides automatically duked it out, with both sides gradually working their way up their respective food chains. In Warlords IV, you have to consider whether that one storm dragon of yours will really be able to take out all those skeletons, or whether a particularly mean skeleton having the undead equivalent of a bad hair day will get lucky. Then, too, the creature that vanquishes an enemy receives the majority of the experience points from the kill: another factor you have to weigh before you throw your forces against a foe. This isn't anywhere near as complex as the combat systems of Heroes of Might and Magic or Age of Wonders, but it arguably puts more emphasis on user strategy thanks to its simplicity. You can always turn it off and return to the series' original mode of combat, if that's preferred.